Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/valerie/page/18/)
Regarding healthcare reform, we are having the wrong conversation. We are having a consumer protection, economic political conversation. We are not having the moral conversation. We have not determined the values and virtues that define us as a people.
Senator Kennedy stood strong for social justice. He spoke out against war, especially the recent War in Iraq. He was a voice for the marginalized in our society. He wanted the Democratic Party to stand its liberal ground. He wanted his party to be clear about its ultimate ideals.
That 47 million people in the United States do not have health insurance, that millions more are underinsured, that millions more live in fear of losing their insurance if they lose their jobs is a sin and a shame. When I was a little girl and my elders would observe some stupid bad behavior in the family, community, church or world, they would shake their heads and with a “tsk tsk” and say: “that is just a sin and a shame.” Religion speaks of sin. We sin when we break the laws of God, when we commit an offense that breaks righteous relationship with God, humanity and creation. Sin happens when we become caught in the deception that we exist in an atomistic individuality.
Before the United States was a nation, before it boasted the most powerful military on earth, before its economic, educational, scientific and cultural influence made it a leader of the world, the founders understood that they owed “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” They knew the nation they were bringing to birth would be part of a family of nations. Thus, they wrote the first of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is a document that established a foundation for human rights. (I recognize the internal contradictions of slavery, blindness to women’s rights and a lack of respect for indigenous peoples made this and other early declarations of human rights far from perfect.) Human rights are rights that inhere in the human person by virtue of her/his humanity.
The incident between Professor Henry Louis Gates and Sgt James Crowley of the Cambridge police department is an example of our lack of faith in each other, especially the lack of faith that we African-Americans have in the police. When I was a little girl, one of the first sentences I remember learning to read in my elementary school reader was: “The policeman is my friend.” Pictures of a friendly white police officer with happy white children accompanied the sentence. As time passed and I learned African-American history, had my own experiences with the police, became the mother of a son and a daughter, and read the news of police behavior in the African-American community, I knew that this sentence in the reader was not always true. Let me hasten to say that my experiences with the police, for the most part, have been positive.